


Just a Game

by ATatForTatzelwurm



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Betaed, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Metafiction, and then forgot to post it anywhere for a month oOPS, this can be read as being set in any game that Orbot has in it really, this may or may not get a second chapter eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 22:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17907131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATatForTatzelwurm/pseuds/ATatForTatzelwurm
Summary: Orbot had never really considered why exactly Dr. Eggman built his bases the way he did, what with deathtraps and clear pathways alike designed for his worst enemy, until now. The revelation isn't quite startling, but it is... Well, he supposed he'd never thought about what it was before.





	Just a Game

"Sir, what are you doing?" Orbot had been watching the doctor for a while, but he couldn't puzzle out exactly what he was trying to accomplish. No less than seven monitors were online, half of them depicting diagrams and blueprints of some experimental piping system and the other half showing his most despised adversary in varying poses, but mostly in his infamous spindash.

"I'm trying to figure out the bare minimum diameter this stupid pipe can be before Sonic can't fit into it anymore." He paused his typing and glared over his shoulder. "What's it to you?"

Orbot blinked. "...Well, if this is going to be part of this base's systems, then I suppose I should ask why you're building it to let Sonic of all people in. Wouldn't the obvious course of action be making it too small?" He really questioned his creator sometimes.

"That's what _you_  think," he snorted. "Doing it my way keeps him busy. If I only took the time to block everything off, he'd just take the obvious way--and in case you haven't noticed, we _need_  an obvious way in order to _do_  anything around here." He leaned back in his chair and swept a hand over his keyboard. "If this thing's too big, he'll just plow into it no question. Make it too small, and he won't even look at it twice.” He sighed and rubbed at his temples. Orbot paused to take in that new information; he had to admit that sometimes there was a method to the doctor’s madness.

"...So what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? If you want to 'keep him busy' as you say, then why not make it narrower as it goes on or force him to turn around?"

Dr. Eggman huffed. "I can't. This thing _does_  need to connect between these two rooms," he said, pointing to a pair of diagrams of the base, "and as funny as it'd be if he got stuck, it's too important to have a hedgehog-shaped clog in there for long. No point to it either, since I can just take him down with the _other_ work-in-progress."

Orbot paused again. The strange tug-of-war Dr. Eggman and Sonic fought was approximately 70 to 95% preparation, construction, and execution, with the last 30 to 5% being destruction at the hands of Sonic and his friends. It was much easier to be the breaker of things than the creator. He wondered if Sonic ever considered how much time and effort went into stopping him--and, really, for all he insulted Dr. Eggman it should have _worked_  by now--but all the fights he'd seen suggested otherwise.

Orbot had previously watched Sonic on the monitors as the doctor frantically readied his last machines, zipping and jumping and ducking around and blasting into robots, but he realized he'd never taken in the sheer level of _care_  Dr. Eggman put into stalling Sonic, making him pause or think his way around problems without sacrificing his own bases' integrity. It really was incredible, the resources he placed into stopping one single being.

Sonic certainly didn't care, or at least didn't show any sign of it. It was always a quick smile, snarky remark, and last heave of speed and power that did them in before he was allowed to run off and celebrate, just another achievement on the wall. He acted like the fight for his and often many others’ lives was a simple pastime quite a lot, and in a way it made sense. For someone with supersonic speed and, depending on the number of Chaos Emeralds acquired, invincible, it could almost be seen as entertainment for such a powerful life.

Perhaps, for Sonic, against all of Dr. Eggman's genius, it was all... just a game.

**Author's Note:**

> This kinda got away from me when I first wrote it. It started out with a silly, goofy concept, but I kept thinking about the more meta side of things and Orbot's perspective made going down that road really easy. In all fairness to myself, it IS pretty interesting to think about.
> 
> The theoretical second chapter would have been (maybe will be?) focused on Amy, with her contemplating everything Eggman's done from the hero-side perspective.


End file.
